Rare astronomical event seen in Malaysia & Singapore last week, but NASA, ESA have no record of it

Singapore—A video of what looked like a fireball falling from the sky was widely spread on social media last week, reportedly captured on February 12 at around 5am in Johor Bahru.

Netizens from Loyang, Bartley, and Hougang also claimed to have witnessed the astronomical phenomenon, and while the International Meteor Organization records four reports of the incident from Singapore and Johor Bahru, there are no such reports confirming the sightings from either the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) nor the European Space Agency (ESA). Both bodies monitor asteroid activity.

Curiously enough, the International Business Times (IBT) says that fireballs were also seen in the sky last week in Canada, the US, Italy and the United Kingdom.

According to IBT, “In terms of incoming asteroids or space rocks, most of these alien objects burn up before striking the surface and turns into dust after they enter the earth’s atmosphere. As per the scientists, every day there are several meteorites which hit the atmosphere, but hardly any of them hit the earth’s surface.”

A clip of the fireball posted on crowd sourced Facebook page All Singapore Stuff had many comments that they had seen it as well.

According to one comment, we should make a wish on the falling star, or whatever the astronomical event turns out to be

Others made a joke at the expense of #SGBudget2020

Yet other netizens sought to explain the phenomenon scientifically.

Regarding the incident, members of the Astronomy.SG group told Coconuts Singapore, 

“Our team was unaware of any such incident until recently. From the video evidence, we cannot confirm the nature of the object. We do not have hard proof that it did hit the ground and there is no data from NASA and the ESA confirming it is a meteorite at this present moment. Our best guess is that it is a meteor that burned up before hitting land, or a fragment of a larger meteorite that entered the atmosphere.”

-/TISG